Officials question process, go along

Election vs. appointment a recurring theme in Columbia.

COLUMBIA - It's a case of playing the game even though you don't agree with the rules: Some candidates for top state positions are running for seats they believe should be appointed by the governor instead of elected by the people.

Marjorie Johnson, the Democratic candidate for secretary of state, which is one of a slew of races on the Nov. 2 ballot, says there is a strong case for that official to be an appointee.

"The office should be first of all nonpartisan, and second, it should be an appointed office," she said.

"But if the public is going to vote for it, the public needs to know their vote means something, not that it just goes into an invisible hole."

The incumbent she hopes to unseat, Republican Mark Hammond, is running one of the least visible campaigns of the season. He disagrees with Johnson and says it should remain an elected position.

"I do not believe the voters of South Carolina want to give up their right to vote for any office," said Hammond, who is seeking a third four-year term.

"I believe the office should remain elected because of the direct accountability to the public and the checks and balances it brings to state government."

But what happens when so-called voter fatigue waylays the public's full participation in the voting booth?

That's Johnson's worry, that people cast votes for the high-profile races at the top of the ballot and ignore the other races, such as the secretary of state contest.

In 2006, when Hammond was elected for his second term, 1,090,944 people voted for governor, while nearly 19,000 left their secretary of state choice blank.

Moreover, said Johnson, the secretary of state's office is "not a star," and hardly registers when she addresses community members.

The General Assembly is also at odds over how constitutional officers should be selected.

Rep. Tom Young, R-Aiken, had filed legislation to make the superintendent of education, adjutant general, secretary of state, secretary of agriculture, comptroller general and treasurer appointed positions in the last session. But his bills fell short of the two-thirds votes needed to place the issue on the ballot for the public to decide as a constitutional amendment. Young said he plans to re-file his bills in the session that begins in January.

State lawmakers on both sides of the issue had insisted they wanted to "let the voters decide." But that has various meanings. They disagreed over which method gives the public more control.

Some argued that keeping constitutional offices subject to elections already achieves the greatest level of public choice. So why give people the option of reducing their decision-making powers?

Proponents said that's just it -- Voters should get to decide.

Meanwhile, in a recent SCETV Radio debate the major-party candidates for state superintendent also aired mixed feelings.

Democrat Frank Holleman noted that he was in the middle of the election process and would have wait until it was over to decide, while Republican Mick Zais said the voters should address the question by ballot referendum.

"Sometimes the most qualified person doesn't always win the election," said Zais, who spoke against the party politics that comes with campaigning for schools chief.

"When you make it an elected position you just interject, I think, too much politics into the educational process in our state," he said.

But Holleman said campaigning for state superintendent can bring some good. For one thing, he said, it forces candidates to visit the state's diverse communities and listen to the public's views on education.

Holleman said a candidate running for the post differs from an appointee, "who can just be brought here from out of state and just come to this state and think they had all the answers."

Comptroller Richard Eckstrom, who is facing a challenge from Democrat Robert Barber, says his post should be appointed and come with minimum qualification standards.

"It's a technical office. It's the state accounting office," said Eckstrom, a certified public accountant, who said the person at the helm should also be a CPA. Barber, who is a businessman and former legislator and lawyer but not a CPA, could not be reached.

"I don't think party identification ought to be the primary driver here," added the Republican, who said he believes legislation to let voters decide whether to make his position and others appointed offices face improving odds.

"The General Assembly has asked me, and I told them I think the rules should be changed," said Eckstrom.